The harbor council met in the open-sided hall above the fish market. Boats knocked softly against their moorings below, and the smell of salt and drying nets drifted up through the floorboards. Pema had set the cracked collar on the table beside the purchase request. The broken glaze was small enough to hide beneath a thumb, but no one in the room mistook it for a minor matter.
Muo called the meeting to order and asked Daro to read the repair plan. Daro explained the new three-channel ring, the failed joint, the honest mineral order, and the proposal to test one repaired section while the original pylon stayed connected. He did not claim the new ring would power the whole village.
An older fisherman named Haku leaned forward. “If it works, when do our payments go down?”
“That cannot be decided by this test,” Pema said. “It will tell us whether this part can carry a measured flow. We will need more sections, more storms, and more maintenance records before we know what the whole ward can do.”
“Then why should we pay for a new line?” Haku asked.
“To find out whether it can help,” said Yao. “We still need the old ward while it is being built. If the trial works, we’ll have a choice with numbers in front of us.”
